Drai's Club Interview

How Do The Richest Of The Rich Party? We Asked The Men Behind Drai's Club In Vegas

David Morris: I keep hearing that Drai’s is about customers first. I know Pure and Miami nightclubs have had a reputation for shaking people down at the door.

Joe Lopez: Honestly when Pure first opened, money seemed to be flowing without us asking for anything. In Miami, monies were not even one-tenth of what it is here when it comes to door operations. At LIV, our capacity was an issue. We had a 20,000-square-foot club with everyone in Miami wanting to come in and I only had a 900-person capacity. I think sometimes people thought that we were shaking people down and holding the door, but it really was because we were at capacity.

Brian Affronti: We have also set up a different incentive program for our marketing team at Drai’s, and there's zero incentive to shake anybody down at the door. What we are looking for is repeat business, so we have a very different set-up in terms of operations than other night clubs.

We want everyone to feel welcome, and all of our staff is friendly. You should be able to walk up and feel like you're going to a place where you know somebody. There's nothing worse than walking up to the door and not knowing who to speak to or not knowing where to go.

I believe that Las Vegas in general has come a long way in terms of how it defines service and I think the mentality of most nightclubs is starting to change in order to be inviting and comfortable. The clubs are much bigger and with more and more coming online, they are also becoming much harder to fill. Eight years ago, the clubs were much smaller and you were able to be more selective at the door. You were able to, almost, have that attitude at the door.

David Morris: Speaking of filling a room, the message at Drai’s seems to be that the club, rather than the DJ, is the star. Aren’t DJs requisite to filling the room?

RMC: I think this is the most spectacular venue I've ever seen. It's a combination of our six or seven favorite clubs from around the world. The staff — we have the most beautiful staff in Las Vegas and the most competent. Our management team on all sides — sales, marketing and operations — are the best. Our host team is young and hungry and they're good-looking, motivated, eager guys — they're very friendly. We're also on the busiest corner of the Las Vegas strip. Obviously, it helps to be the newest thing, but we kind of have a responsibility to change what's happening right now. Everyone five years ago was… back in the day, no one knew that Tryst had a DJ booth or XS for that matter; and then all of a sudden the DJs came into play.

Not knocking any other club, that's their business model; we're just trying to change our business model into an experiential one of "boy meets girl" and foster that social interaction to where it's not a one-directional party, it's not a concert. You can rent an airplane hangar and put a big-name DJ in there. We have built a $100 million club here and want people to enjoy the finishes, lighting and the décor and everything else, rather than solely staring at a celebrity DJ.

Brian Affronti: I think that one of the main focuses of our club is the party. We want to make sure that people are having a good time and we want to reinvest some of that money back into our customers and put the attention back on them rather than investing all the money into the DJ and hoping that the customers have a good time. We want to do different things. We've put a lot into our production. We want to make sure that not only the music's right but also the service and overall vibe of the club.

David Morris: When you say investing back into the customer, what do you mean by that?

Brian Affronti: Investing more money into our production. For example, we have firework packages where if the customer wants to come in and spend $20,000, they will have an opportunity to light off their own fireworks. That goes all the way up to $100,000. In some other clubs in town, you can spend $100,000 and the attention and focus is still on the DJ and what's going on. We want to make sure the focus is on our customers — and that they walk away feeling that it was $100,000, $20,000 or $1,000 well spent.

David Morris: These fireworks packages were Ryan’s idea?

RMC: Yes, and I just completed a Drai's Yacht Club menu for the Beach Club that’s similar to our private jet offerings that we do with Drai's Airways.

David Morris: What do you mean, "yacht packages?"

RMC: The yacht packages include a charter and are at similar price points to Drai's Airways — those were priced at quarter million, half million and $737,000. I wanted to put together a million-dollar Airways package as well, but we just didn't have the menu space.

These yacht packages are for the Beach Club and are priced at a quarter million, $500,000, $750,000 and a million. I wanted to call the million-dollar package "Moby's Dick" but I didn't know if that was appropriate, so we are calling it “The Moby Dick." There's "The Commodore" for a quarter-million dollars.